Free Amanda Scott by The Bath Eccentric’s Son Page A

Sep calls him,” Manningford said. “He thinks him unready. He maligns him, I believe.”
    “Well, what do you call him?” she asked reasonably.
    “Dog,” he said.
    “But that will not do at all,” she said, looking again at the hound. “He is rather regal, but not much like an Ethelred, more like the Emperor Maximilian, I think.”
    “Max he shall be then,” Manningford said.
    She grinned at him. “Just like that, sir?”
    “Just like that,” he replied, smiling back at her.
    Nell looked away and said quickly, “I cannot imagine why you have never given him a proper name him before now.”
    “I only just acquired him,” he said, and went on to explain.
    When he had finished, she said, “That is one wager my father never dreamed of. Did every card truly land face down?”
    “Every one. Was not your father the one who set out to lay jackstraws end to end along the road from Frome to Beckington before some other fellow could twice walk the same distance?”
    “The very same. He lost that wager, though. A heavy wind came up and blew half the straws away before he’d finished. He was most put out, because it had taken him nearly a month to collect enough straws to do the trick in the first place.”
    Mr. Lasenby had been watching them, and listening, and this casual cordiality was too much for him. He said sharply, “Here now, what goes on? Bran, you say she knows you meant to abduct her for a wager, yet here she is discussing dog’s names and absurd wagers with you just as if you was both at a rout party, when she ought by rights to be laying charges against you.”
    Manningford’s eyebrows shot up. “I hadn’t thought of that. Do you mean to lay charges, Miss Bradbourne?”
    A gurgle of laughter escaped before she could stop it. “I do not think I should care to do that, sir,” she said. When he regarded her with twinkling humor in his eyes, she shook her head and said, “Any competent magistrate would stare at such a tale as I might relate. ‘A gentleman took me up in Sydney Gardens,’ I’d tell him, ‘and drove me to Grosvenor Place, where he took up another gentleman before returning me to Laura Place.’ In point of fact, sir, there is no crime that I can see.”
    “But look here,” Mr. Lasenby said, “he must have spun you some Banbury tale or other to get you into the phaeton, and he wasn’t meaning to take you only so far as Grosvenor Place. In actual point of fact, ma’am, if you had not had that pistol—though why a lady residing in Bath should carry a pistol in her reticule is more than I can say. Why do you do so, ma’am?”
    “I had no maid or footman to accompany me, Mr. Lasenby, and I have not always resided in Bath,” Nell said.
    “But, surely—”
    “Peace, Sep,” Manningford said, and to Nell’s surprise, since Mr. Lasenby seemed something of an amiable rattlepate, he said not another word. There was a long moment of silence before Manningford said thoughtfully, “You know, Miss Bradbourne, I cannot help but feel that somehow I ought to repay you for taking so sanguine an attitude to my outrageous behavior.”
    “Well, I do not know how you might do that, sir, unless you know of someone in need of a companion, or perhaps a governess.”
    He shook his head. “No one.” He glanced at her. “I do not think anyone will hire you for a governess.”
    “But I have been well-educated, sir, and the only other thing I do well is housekeeping, for I served my father in that capacity from the time I turned sixteen.”
    “Well, you cannot go for a housekeeper. What else can you do? There must be something.”
    “Nothing,” she said firmly, “unless you consider my passion for reading or my foolish scribbles.”
    “You write?” He looked at her sharply.
    “Well, not really. That is, nothing but nonsensical stuff for my own amusement. I daresay I should enjoy reading to an invalid or making up tales to amuse children, but I do not think I should make enough in either